


Two's Company

by celluloidbroomcloset



Category: The Avengers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3592683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloidbroomcloset/pseuds/celluloidbroomcloset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief fic that takes place just after the events in Two's A Crowd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two's Company

Steed should have known that he wouldn’t get off that easily. When Emma finally came to realize that he was himself and not Webster, he thought – hoped, really – that all would be forgiven. He was alive; it had all been a hoax. Neither of them were ever really in danger. Surely she could forgive a little subterfuge.

But the instant they were in the Lotus, driving back to London, all his friendly overtures were met with an icy wall. Mrs. Peel – Emma - did not even look at him. He would have preferred her to be angry. Anger he knew how to deal with; he had all his excuses perfectly ready. It was very unfair of her not to give him an opportunity to use them. 

Steed did his best to be his usual charming self. He had begun to recount how very humorous he found Brodny’s face when the little fellow realized that he was still alive, when Mrs. Peel turned carefully off the road into the entrance of a country lane and turned the engine off. 

“What are we doing?” Steed asked. 

There was silence in the car, broken only by birds chirping and the low moan of a cow in some farmer’s field. Mrs. Peel stared straight ahead, her face a very beautiful mask. 

“Lovely day … ” Steed began, longing to the fill the silence. 

“What exactly am I to you?”

The question was posed devoid of emotion. 

“What are you? What do you mean?”

“What am I? Your friend? Your partner? Your colleague? What?”

“All of the above,” he said. “And a good bit more.”

She looked at him now. “So this is how you treat your ‘good bits more’?”

There was the anger. Her dark eyes sparked with it, her voice was taut with it. This, then, was Emma Peel very angry indeed. 

“I told you …”

“I know what you told me. I merely want to know where I stand with you, Steed. I ask for information. Nothing more.”

“It was necessary.”

“To keep me in the dark? Good. I’m glad to know it was necessary. What else?”

This was not how he imagined this conversation would go. He imagined a great deal more shouting. And emotion, which he could easily defend against. She was angry, but she was very controlled.

“I believe I explained it all,” he said. 

“Did you? Was that all? What about the tie-pin?”

“The tie-pin?”

“Your little crack about the tie-pin.”

Her eyes bore into him. He cleared his throat and tried to think of a reasonable explanation. He had been very much in character at the time. It seemed the perfect nail in the proverbial coffin – surely she could never believe that the Steed she knew would make so callous and so cruel a remark. But he had, of course. Webster never existed. 

“I needed to be certain that I convinced you.” A weak defense. 

“Be certain that you convinced me.” She squeezed the steering wheel. “Pardon me. I need some air.”

She got out of the car and walked quickly for the lane. For a moment, Steed debated whether it was wise to follow her. She was a rational woman – one of the many things he adored about her – and very controlled. But if she felt she had been truly wronged … well, he did not wish to be on the receiving end of physical anger. But if he didn’t follow her, something irrevocable might occur that he’d regret for the rest of his life. He got out of the car.

The day was lovely; he had not been making pleasantries. The sun shone, the birds sang, the air smelled of hay and manure. England in the springtime. Ordinarily he would enjoy the ramble along a wide dirt path, a light canopy of trees overhead, the gentle breeze wafting, the lovely woman by his side ... but the lovely woman was speeding ahead at a un-leisurely pace and he had difficulty keeping up. He wasn’t certain if he wanted to keep up. He wasn’t certain if he had not better leave her alone to calm down.

He had almost determined that it was better to turn around and go back to the car, when Mrs. Peel suddenly stopped in the center of the path. She turned. She looked at him. She came speeding back at a terrifying pace. The look in her eye that spoke of violent intent. Steed only just had time to back-peddle a few steps before she stopped. 

“I don't like being manipulated, Steed. I very much don’t like being lied to. But I could forgive both of those if you had not been so frankly, callously cruel.”

“Mrs. Peel, I’m sorry about the tie-pin. I was trying to … ”

“You were deliberately vicious. There was ample opportunity to tell me what was happening. If not from the start, then when you came over to me. You could have said something, indicated that it was all a game. There are thousand things you could have said, Steed. Instead you chose to torture me.”

Every word was like a body blow, made all the worse because she was right. He had been cruel. He knew it. He even intended it.

She paused again. He could see the battle in her face to maintain control. He wasn’t certain if she was on the point of tears or of slapping him. At this juncture, either wouldn’t have surprised him.

When she went on, it was in a calmer tone. 

“You don't trust me, Steed. You could never have done what you did if you trust me.”

Steed stared. Didn’t trust her? She was perhaps the only person he did trust.

“And if I’m not to be trusted, then I don’t see why we should continue to work together.”

Steed had never been dumbfounded before. He suppose this was what it felt like. The total inability to say or do anything. A curious dropping of his stomach. A tingling rush of blood to his head that was highly unpleasant. He stared at her – her lovely face, struggling to maintain control. Her eyes, refusing to meet his. Her whole posture – defiant, arms crossed over her chest, stock still. She meant what she said.

Say something, he told himself. She’s walking out of your life. She’s threatening to walk out of your life. Say anything. 

“I do trust you.”

Very weak opening, but at least he was capable of speech. 

“I trusted you to survive,” he continued. “And escape. And to know … to know that it wasn’t me. That I wasn’t myself. I had to convince you. Because they know too. That I trust you.”

He knew what he wanted to say, but it appeared to be coming out all wrong. She stared blankly at him. 

“I trusted you,” he said, “not to shoot me in the back of the head.”

He did not mention that there was a moment he was honestly frightened that she would. He had seen something very new in her that day - a willingness to kill, coldly and without remorse. 

“Why didn’t you tell me, Steed?”

He wished he knew. He had operated on impulse, independently, not really thinking of her. Perhaps there was a dark little part of him that wanted to know what she would do when faced with a Steed who was not Steed. His replica in appearance but not in behavior. When he was pretending to be Webster it was like watching another man with her; a far more callous, cold, shrewd and calculating man. 

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” he said.

Again that lack of certainty if she would hit him or burst into tears. Her jaw spasmed and she blew out a puff of air.

“Mind? I listened to you die.”

Her tone cut him more than tears or anger ever could.

She took a step closer. 

“Do you hear me, Steed? I listened to you die.”

There was pain in her voice and it filled him with shame to be the cause.

“Mrs. Peel,” he said, reaching out for her. She backed away from his hand. 

“How do you think I felt?” Her voice rose. “I heard your voice, I heard the shot, I sat in the same room with your murderers. I saw a man with your face who had taken your life. And then when I tried to stop him – you - you grabbed me and twisted the gun out of my hand.”

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“Irrevocably!” she shot out at him. “I nearly killed you myself. I never hated any one more than I hated Webster in those few minutes.”

She turned away from him and walked a few steps. He’d never wanted to put his arms around her more. But she probably wouldn’t let him do that ever again.

“You cared.” 

He did not really mean to say it out loud. It was just a notion that occurred to him. So few cared. 

“Why do you think I asked you to turn around?”

He raised his head. “What?”

“I told you to turn around because I was going to kill you and I could not bear to look into your eyes – his eyes - when I did it. I looked at him and all I could see was you, Steed.”

She might as well have shot him. It would have been less painful than to hear the depth of emotion in her voice and realize what he had done. He was an idiot, a fool. He’d tested her. He’d done his damnedest to drive her away, using his work as an excuse. He wanted to see how much she cared, and whether she could tell him from a man like him. He wanted, he realized, to make her mistrust him so that when she left - when that day came as it had with everyone who ever mattered to him - it would not hurt so much. But instead he’d only proven to himself what he most dreaded and most desired. She did matter; she was the only thing that did. And he’d hurt her. 

“Emma.”

He went to her. She didn’t run away, just stood and let him approach without acknowledging him. He stood close enough to touch her. He could practically feel her breathing. She smelled of floral perfume and her vanilla shampoo. 

“How could you, Steed? Would you have let me become your murderer?”

“I’m sorry. I’m dreadfully sorry.” 

She looked up at him.

“I listened to you die,” she repeated, and there were tears in her voice though none in her eyes.

He wanted to tell her why he’d done it. That he was afraid of how dependent he was on her, more dependent than he had ever been on another person. That he wanted to prove he could do without her. That he had failed at that too. That he loved her and it terrified him. 

He loved her. 

He put two fingers at her jaw, very lightly, tilting her face up to his. He could feel her pulse beating against his finger tips. 

“Emma…” he said.

“I thought I lost you,” she whispered. 

He kissed her, gently, delicately, hoping it would say everything he couldn’t. She didn’t resist. She was angry still, but there was relief in that kiss, relief in the way she touched him, relief in the lips against his. Her hands came up over his shoulders, across his neck to hold his head. Her body conformed to his. She fit him perfectly. Was it any wonder he loved her?

Finally, reluctantly, the kiss ended. Steed returned to earth, but he kept her in his arms. Her head rested on his shoulder, face turned into his neck.

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she said. 

“I don’t doubt it.”

“If you ever do such a thing again…”

He squeezed her tightly. “Never.”

She drew back, looking up at him with such undisguised affection that he was cut even more with the memory of what he had nearly done.

He ran his thumb over her lips. Tell her. You might as well. 

“Mrs. Peel … Emma … ”

She shook her head and pressed a kiss to his mouth. 

“Me too, Steed,” she whispered.


End file.
